Improving the resilience of informal settlements to fire (IRIS-Fire)

This high-impact project is concerned with how an interdisciplinary approach to fire science and engineering can improve the resilience of informal settlements against fires. Through a combination of state-of-the-art experimental and modeling fire science coupled with unique data gathering in informal settlements and novel applications of existing satellite data, we will deliver a framework to assess fire risk in informal settlements and propose technologically appropriate, data driven risk reduction methodologies.
Over one billion people across the globe live in informal shack settlements, and this number is ever increasing as urbanization increases. Many of these informal settlements are at constant risk of lethal and large scale fires, due to flammable construction materials, heating and cooking methods, proximity of the shacks, and a lack of effective fire services, amongst other factors. For occupants of these shacks, death and injury from fire constitute 'a serious public health problem'; 96% of the world's burn-related deaths (about 300,000 deaths annually) occur in lower- and middle-income countries.
Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent at 7% average increase between 1990-2015 and the population in urban clusters has increased by 484 million people in 25 years. In South Africa it is estimated that up to one third of the population now live in informal settlements, and in Cape Town the number of informal dwellings grew from around 28,000 in 1993 to 104,000 in 2006. Cape Town is known as the fire capital of South Africa and between 1990 and 2004 the Mandisa GIS database tracked over 18,500 fire incidents recorded, 47% occurred in informal settlements. On an annual basis there are around 500 deaths and 15,000 fire related hospital related admissions due to fire in the city, of which a substantial proportion are people from informal settlements.
The project will develop the new methods and tools required to evaluate and model the fire risks within South African informal settlements of the Western Cape so that situationally appropriate and cost-effective solutions and strategies can be suggested to improve the resilience of South African informal settlement communities against large-scale conflagrations.
This will be achieved through producing new guidelines, based on unique experimental data generated in the UK and in South Africa, surveying of Western Cape informal settlements to improve stochastic data on their composition and topography, probabilistic modelling of informal settlements based on validated models using experimental data, and important engagement and consultation with the stakeholders within informal settlements (NGOs, fire services, policy makers and local residents) to ensure that any new guidelines are appropriate and effective.
Additionally, a framework for risk mapping and monitoring, based on results of experiments and modelling within this project, will direct and inform where interventions using the guidelines are the most important, by highlighting the areas of highest conflagration risk. The modelling tools, frameworks, and associated data will be disseminated through free workshops and CPD events to informal settlement stakeholders, with the aim of developing capacity within South Africa to continue and improve research developments and design specifications of informal settlements with respect to fire safety engineering
The proposed developments of understanding, tools, frameworks and guidelines, whilst based on South African informal settlements will be produced in a way that can be easily transferred and applied to similar settlements elsewhere in the world. The benefit to all these settlements, in the Western Cape and elsewhere globally, will be a reduction of loss of life, property, and will increase the economic prospects of those who live in the poorest areas of the world.

This project is motivated by the desire to improving the living conditions of world's poorest people who are the most vulnerable to fire. Our impact activities will directly focus on engaging stakeholders within these communities, through NGOs, policy makers, fire fighters, and residents, to deliver the most effective research findings to ameliorate fire risk in informal settlements. Dissemination of results to the variety of stakeholders is essential to this project and will be achieved through several named deliverables (see Case for Support) to achieve the greatest impact in four specific areas.
Impact area 1 will disseminate data and analysis that are the technical backbone of the project, delivering the essential evidence base from which risk mapping and resilience based adaptations can be created. Data generated and collected through ground surveys, experimental programmes, and modelling will be disseminated through the usual avenues of journal and conference publications, but additionally through planned workshops with relevant stakeholders, with a secondary aim of developing local and international networks between fire safety engineers, architects and planners, industry, the fire services and academia.
Impact area 2 specifically engages with policy makers on a wider scale. The Risk Mapping Framework (RMF) and risk maps of informal settlements in the Western Cape and potentially further afield in South Africa, will highlight where the highest risk areas are for fire spread to provide direction for interventions that will have the highest immediate impact in ameliorating fire risks. These risk maps, the framework and the background information and analysis will be disseminated to policy makers and other stakeholders through a final project workshop which will provide enough detail and information that the framework can be updated and applied by those who are using it, making it a useful tool as informal settlements develop and grow with time. The RMF will be made publically available with a user guide and examples to allow other jurisdictions to apply the framework to other situations. The framework and risk maps will also be disseminated through conference and journal publications to gather further academic insight, interest, refinement.
Impact area 3 has most relevance for the organisations involved in informal settlement planning and adaptation activities. The developed Resilience Based Technical Guidelines will be NGOs, expert advisers, and the government agencies (and industry) that upgrade of informal settlement infrastructure. Our Stakeholder Advisory Panel and workshops, including NGOs, is designed to disseminate our experimental and modelling findings in accessible formats. The final evidenced-based technical guidelines will be in the three predominant languages found in the Western Cape: English, Afrikaans, and isiXhosa. This will ensure that the relevant data and information about fire resilience adaptation of shacks is readily accessible to as many people as possible.
Impact area 4 is aimed at educating and developing research capacity within SA benefiting those educated, as well as the inhabitants of the informal settlements. Free workshops and CPD training around fire safety, forensic fire investigation, structural fire engineering, and resiliency will deliver the education required to all participants regardless of personal economic situation. This will then provide the knowledge base to generate pertinent data from forensic analyses of real informal settlement fires, refining the understanding and models created within the project. A better educated community within SA will allow for greater breadth and depth of research collaboration on topics to improve conditions for some of the world's poorest people.
Finally, our project team will use our collective media expertise to further the impact of our findings at an international level to shape thinking, policy, and practice.